The Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group works to help people whose rights have been violated and investigates cases involving such abuse, as well as assessing the overall human rights situation in Ukraine. The Group also seeks to develop awareness of human rights issues through public events and its various publications

Former Prime Minister and leader of the Batkivshchyna Party, Yulia Tymoshenko is demanding that the Kyiv SIZO [detention centre] retract untruthful information about the conditions in which she is being held.

A letter to this effect was made public on Monday by her defence lawyer, MP Serhiy Vlasenko.

She expresses her outrage at the video and tells the Administration that they know very well that she was never in Cell No. 242 with three other prisoners with the conditions shown She says that it was a completely different cell, that in No. 242 she was one of three in a room of 15 metres squared with a window without glass, without hot water, and sometimes without cold water, with a concrete floor, shelves and stools from unprocessed boards and a makeshift toilet in an area partitioned off. She accuses them of misinforming the public with their stories about a shower room and tiled mirror, and therefore demands public retraction.

Ms Tymoshenko says that the video which has circulated on the Internet was made by staff of the Security Service [SBU] and expresses outrage over the immoral videoing.

“You know very well that on 14 December an SBU officer and film crew burst into the cell, accompanied by SIZO officials. Despite my objections they began pointing the camera at me and filming. They used the fact that I am bound to my bed through illness and cannot avoid or move away from direct videoing. That seemed almost like an execution”.